


Honeysuckle

by profdanglais



Series: Secret Things [1]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Fluff, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, librarian!killian, seriously so fluffy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-18
Updated: 2019-04-18
Packaged: 2020-01-15 19:20:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18505414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/profdanglais/pseuds/profdanglais
Summary: Emma finds herself in a precarious position while trying to return some library books and shy librarian Killian comes to her rescue. He’s sweet and kind and Henry’s bookworm hero but there’s also something about him that she doesn’t know.(Something good)





	Honeysuckle

**Author's Note:**

> All the thanks to @shireness-says for letting me borrow the adorable cinnamon roll that is Librarian!Killian, and also for inspiring this fic with her actual life. Librarian!Killian is a bit Deckhand Hook, a bit Lt Jones, which is a version of Killian I’ve never written before. It’s been fun, and not coincidentally this is the only thing I’ve ever written with a G rating. 
> 
> (Thanks also to @katie-dub whose beautiful fic Her Happy Beginning inspired me to try a new style of narration.)

Life, as some wise person once said, is just one damned thing after another. It’s full of _frustration_ and _elation_ and _misery_ and _comedy_ and so, so much _embarrassment_. And sometimes, on those most rare and exquisite of occasions, all of these factors coalesce into one grand, transcendent experience that makes the person living it wish simultaneously to die of humiliation and live in that moment forever. 

Dear Reader, such was the experience of one Emma Swan, medical assistant and single mother, on the third day of the sixth month of the twenty-eighth year of her life. 

The day began as an unremarkable one. Emma dragged herself from bed at the unholy hour of six-thirty am, banged on her son’s bedroom door on her way to the kitchen, and spent the next ten minutes mainlining coffee and forcing herself into full consciousness. When Henry appeared she poured him a bowl of cereal, kissed his forehead, and headed for the shower. So far so ordinary. 

Things didn’t start to go wrong until Emma, showered and dressed and with her still-damp hair pulled into a practical ponytail, took the opportunity of Henry’s regular morning dawdling session to reread the latest letter from her secret pen pal.

(Secret only because Emma was perhaps overly conscious that having a ‘pen pal’ in this day and at her age might be seen by some as rather ridiculous. Not even Henry knew, although she’d had the pen pal far longer than she’d had the son. Since she was ten years old, in fact, and her fourth grade teacher had arranged a writing exchange with a class in England. For reasons Emma could never fully articulate she had bonded instantly and strongly to the boy across the sea known to her only as ‘K’ —again for ‘reasons’, these best known to themselves, they addressed each other by their initials only— and throughout her life of foster families and failed relationships he remained the only person who had never left her. Virtually anonymous though it may be, it was by far the longest and most stable relationship of Emma’s life and nothing but Henry had ever been more precious to her. But she kept it secret because it was ridiculous. Yep. That’s what she told herself.)   

But back to the letter. 

 _On my way to work yesterday I came across what I think must be some of the first lilacs of the season and I thought of you,_ it read. _I always think of you when I see flowers and I can never decide which one suits you best, which probably makes sense since I have never seen your face. Are you sweet and springlike as lilacs are, or are you more of a full summer flower like a rose? Maybe you are a slim and elegant calla lily, or perhaps a tall and slightly terrifying sunflower? (Don’t laugh, E, sunflowers are scary! Have you ever seen one? They remind me of Triffids (that’s a book reference, love, and before you ask yes there’s a movie as well. Read the book first) and the way they move to follow the sun is creepy.)_

_(I know you’re laughing at me. Stop it.)_

It is true I regret to say that Emma had laughed the first time she read the letter, also the second time and possibly the third. But this being the sixth or seventh (tenth) reading the words elicited a smile that came less from mirth and more from a sort of sighing wistfulness as she imagined her never-seen dearest friend sniffing lilacs and thinking of her. 

She wished she knew what he looked like. 

She had tried many times to paint his face in her mind, one that fit the beauty of his words, but found she very literally could not imagine it. Emma’s experience with men was one that is sadly not uncommon among beautiful women whose positions in society are tenuous. As a single mother with only a high school diploma Emma had encountered more than her share of creeps and assholes, men who mistook her vulnerability for weakness and attempted to take advantage of her.

It was a mistake they did not make twice, but the sad result was that Emma had soured on men and relationships and all but given up hope that she would ever find someone who loved her. And as for a man so sweet and kind that he stopped to admire lilacs and wondered what kind of flower she might be, well, he was an impossibility in her experience, simply too good to be true.

She knew of course that K was real. _Someone_ had been writing to her for nearly twenty years. She had no desire to meet him, though (she did) for fear of the crushing disappointment if he didn’t live up to the ideal she had of him in her mind. No, he was much better left to her imagination and the pages of his beautifully written letters. She couldn’t bear to lose those letters.  

She was just indulging in speculation over what sort of flower _he_ might be when Henry’s voice and the thud of the books he dropped on the table in front of her brought her back to reality. 

“Mom, these books are due back today,” he said. 

“What? Why didn’t you take them back yesterday?”

“I forgot them at home. I didn’t even remember they were due until Killian reminded me. But we can return them now, can’t we?”

Emma tried to remember that he wasn’t trying to exasperate her, he was just absent-minded. “Henry, we are already late. Can’t you take them after school today?”

“No, I have D&D after school.” 

“I’m sure you can miss it one time—” 

“ _No_ , Mom, we’re in the middle of a campaign and I _have_ to be there.” 

Emma threw up her hands. “Okay, fine, but you’ll have to take the bus to school.” 

“Mo-om!” 

“No, I do not have time to take you to school, then go to the library, _then_ work. I’ll drive you to the bus stop then swing by the library and put your books in the drop. Hurry up now, are you ready?”

“Yeah, just let me grab my backpack.” 

He ran to get it and Emma absently slipped the letter into its envelope and the envelope into one of Henry’s library books before gathering the books in her arms and slinging her tote bag over her shoulder and herding her son out the door and into her car. 

(I wonder if you can spot where this is going yet?)

Ten minutes later Emma pulled into the library parking lot with as close to a squeal of tires as her creaky Bug could manage and grabbed Henry’s books from her passenger seat. Hurrying to the book drop she tipped them in…

And remembered. Far too late. 

“My letter!” she cried, and without thinking of anything beyond recovering the treasured words, Emma dove headfirst into the book drop, trying to catch the book that held her letter before it fell. She was a slender woman and the book drop more sizeable than most, but it was decidedly not designed to accommodate the ingress of any size of human, and so all she accomplished was to wedge her shoulders tightly into the narrow space with one arm stretched out in front of her inside the chute and the other sticking out of the drop’s opening at an odd angle. With the toe of one foot she could just touch the ground while the other one dangled helplessly in the air. She kicked with her leg to try to yank herself free but succeeded only in sending her practical flat shoe flying off her foot and landing with a splash in what she felt certain was a mud puddle, just as the sound of Henry’s books landing in the bin at the bottom of the chute reached her ears. 

 _Perfect_ , she thought. _Just perfect_.  

This, as I’m sure you have deduced my lovely Reader, has been the _embarrassment_ and yes also the _comedy_ portion of our tale. The former feeds the latter until it is fat as we all know from our own lives, and in the years to come Emma would learn to laugh when telling and retelling the story of her predicament. Though it must be said that, as is often the case with embarrassing things, she saw absolutely no humour in it at the time.

The _frustration_ came into play moments later as Emma made further attempts to extricate herself from the drop, only to find that the position of her shoulders and her hands and her legs left her entirely unable to get enough purchase on any solid surface to provide sufficient counterbalancing force to un-wedge her. She was well and truly stuck, profoundly uncomfortable, and by that time almost certainly late for work. 

It was then that the _misery_ kicked in. 

“Fuck,” she shouted, and the word reverberated down the metal chute, echoing back to her in a way she considered almost insultingly on the nose. She closed her eyes and let her head fall against the side of the chute and wondered just what the hell she was going to do now. 

(It will not, I feel certain, have escaped your notice that we have not yet had _elation_. Fear not, gentle Reader, for it is to come, and far sooner than Emma expects.) 

Fortunately both for Emma and our story a rescuer soon arrived, not on a white charger as in a fairy tale but aboard a practical secondhand Volvo in a rather nice shade of blue. 

Now Killian Jones may well have wished, deep in his heart, in that remote corner where he kept his love of adventure stories and even fancied himself a bit of a rogue, for something sportier, something a touch more dashing. But Killian Jones was a librarian, and the financial realities of our world dictate that librarians do not drive sports cars. So Killian had sighed for what was never to be and bought the Volvo —and adamantly rejected the silver one, he was not a vampire, sparkly or otherwise— and it had to be said that he’d never regretted it. 

All he regretted that morning was the broken shoelace that had made him too late to walk to work and smell the lilacs. 

As he pulled into the parking lot he was surprised to see a yellow Volkswagen Beetle parked haphazardly in the closest spot to the door that wasn’t reserved for the differently abled. It looked very much like the car that he’d frequently seen young Henry running to, the one that would naturally be driven by his mother…

Impulsively Killian pulled into the space next to the yellow car instead of continuing to the employee lot. His heart had begun to pound and his mouth was dry. 

 _It’s probably not her,_ he told himself firmly. _There have to be other yellow Bugs in the neighbourhood_. 

(There definitely weren’t.)

But if it was her he couldn’t pass up the opportunity to stutter a few incoherent words before excusing himself awkwardly and fleeing to a private corner where he might catch his breath, which was what happened every time he tried to talk to Henry’s mother.

Now Killian Jones, as, dearest Reader, you well know, was a handsome man, and one not so caught up in books and fantasy that he was unaware of this fact or of the effect it had on women. He could be smooth enough with the female species when he put his mind to it but something about Henry’s mother —he didn’t even know her name— tied his tongue and stopped his throat and robbed him of every shred of eloquence he may otherwise possess. 

This didn’t stop him from trying, though. The humiliation was worth it to see her smile. 

He got out of the car as quickly as possible, cursing as he caught the strap of his satchel in the door, then hurried to the library’s main entrance, looking around in a way that he hoped didn’t make it too obvious that he was looking around. Where would she be? he wondered. If she was here that is, if it was her. Come to think of it, why _would_ she be here? Why would anyone? Who went to the library an hour before it opened to, what, stand around in front of the door and wait? 

His attention was finally drawn, after a moment or two, to the after-hours book drop when the person stuck inside it began banging and shouting loudly enough for even the most distracted bookworm to notice. 

Wait… _the person stuck inside the book drop?_

Killian turned to look, mouth gaping open in astonishment, too taken aback to even feel ashamed that he very definitely recognised that arse. 

So that’s where she was. This simultaneously answered several questions and posed a good few more. 

He hurried over, knowing that he ought to do something, but very uncertain as to what that something ought to be. 

“Um, hello?” he ventured. “Excuse me?”

Her voice was muffled but the annoyance came through loud and clear. “Oh thank fuck, I thought you’d gone,” she said.  

“Um. What?”

“I heard your car door slam so I started banging to get your attention, but then no one came and I thought you’d left, or gone in another direction or something.” 

“Ah. Er, no. I’m, uh, I’m here. What, um, what can I do for you?” He winced even as he spoke the words.

(She robbed him of all eloquence, you recall, even when all he could see was her backside. Perhaps especially then.)

She paused just long enough to make her opinion of his question clear. “Get me out of here!” she shouted.

“Aye, of course, lass, but, er, um—” Killian assessed the situation from three different angles just to be sure that there was no other option, that it wasn’t simply his physical attraction to her getting the better of him “—I’ll have to, uh, there’s no other way except to, er, touch you—”

“Yes, yes, I know that’s fine, just get me out!” 

“Aye, all right, um, can you push on the inside of the chute at all?”

“Yes, but I can’t get enough purchase on the ground to counterbalance, so I can’t force my shoulders out.” 

“Ah, yes, I see. All right, well you push and I’ll just, um—” Cautiously he wrapped his arm around her waist and braced his hand against the wall of the library. “I’ll brace you. Are you ready?”

“ _So_ ready.” 

“Okay, on three. One… two… _three!_ ” 

Killian planted his feet firmly on the ground and he could feel her muscles tense and flex as she pushed on the wall of the chute, and with her body braced against his she was able to un-wedge her shoulders from the narrow space and then with a final heave she freed herself from the drop, the force of it sending her stumbling backwards against Killian, whose other arm automatically wrapped itself around her and held on tight. 

She smelled like honeysuckle, was all he could think.

Too soon she was straightening up and he forced his arms to let her go, and she turned around with a smile that nearly ended him. 

“Thanks,” she said. “I thought I’d be in there at least until the library opened.” 

Emma was trying to be cool but the truth was that even from inside the chute she’d recognised the voice and accent of Henry’s favourite librarian, his hero really, the man who had recommended all his favourite books and who always had time to discuss them with him. Henry talked about him almost nonstop. 

“Ah, it’s Killian, isn’t it?” she said. “We’ve talked a few times before, I’m Henry’s mother.”

Killian swallowed hard and forced himself not to panic. “Aye, I remember. Er— sorry, I don’t know your name.” 

 _He’s so cute,_ thought Emma. She’d always thought so, if she was honest, not just his face but the adorable way he couldn’t quite manage to talk to her. It was sweet, and frankly a blessed change from the way men usually acted around her.

“It’s Emma Swan,” she said, and held out her hand. Killian took it gingerly, like he was afraid it might bite him. 

The jolt of sensation that went through both of them at the contact seemed to confirm his fears.  

They both pulled their hands away, laughing nervously, and thorough the haze of his confusion something prickled in Killian’s mind. _E. Swan_ , he thought, _just like…_

“You must be wondering how I managed to get stuck like that,” said Emma, interrupting his thoughts, attempting to brazen through her own jumpy nerves by talking.

“Well, yes, I confess it did cross my mind.” A complete sentence in her presence, that was a first, he thought. 

“Yeah, it must be a pretty weird thing to encounter first thing in the morning.”

“I assure you, lass, we’ve seen weirder in this library.” _Two_ complete sentences, what had come over him? 

“That’s nice of you to say. Okay, here’s the thing. I kinda… left something really important in one of the books I returned, and… look I’m so grateful to you for rescuing me but would you mind maybe going to see if you could find it?” She kept her face calm but he could sense her anxiety in the way she twisted her hands together. “It’s, well, it’s personal and I don’t want to lose it, or you know have strangers reading it—”

He waved his hand to cut her off. “Say no more, it would be my pleasure to retrieve it for you. Um, what is it?”

Her smile shone relieved and brilliant, and Killian’s powers of speech abandoned him yet again. 

“It’s a letter. In an envelope. I mean, just like a normal envelope. But… open.” 

He nodded, groping desperately for his words. “Letter. Envelope. Got it. I’ll, um, go now. Uh, stay here.” 

“Where else would I go?” she asked his retreating back. 

Killian hurriedly unlocked the main doors and raced down the stairs to the bin at the bottom of the book drop’s chute. He realised he’d forgotten to ask Emma —he felt a small thrill using her name— which book she’d left her letter in, but fortunately he remembered which books Henry had checked out during his last visit. They’d had a long conversation about each, after all. He ruffled through the first one but no letter fell out, the same result for the second. The third, however, produced its treasure, an ordinary, unremarkable white letter envelope. 

One that looked strikingly familiar. 

Killian stared at the letter in his hand, addressed to one E. Swan, in a firm, flowing, elegant script.

A script he recognised. 

Because it was his own. 

 _Bloody hell_. 

(Be honest, now, kind Reader, you aren’t going to tell me you didn’t see this coming?) 

Killian wanted to hyperventilate. (Is it possible to want to hyperventilate?) His favourite patron’s mother, the woman he’d admired (and yes, done a bit of pining for) from afar was also, somehow, the pen pal he’d had since he was ten years old. His dearest friend. 

It was too ridiculous. It was impossible. 

(It was actually just a very strange coincidence, and who among us hasn’t experienced one of those? But Killian was feeling rather dramatic in that moment, so we’ll give him a pass.)

 (Now Reader, you are likely wondering how it is possible that two people who communicate via letter, a medium of communication that requires the knowledge of one’s recipient’s address as a matter of course, could possibly be unaware that they lived in the same neighbourhood of the same small town, mere blocks from one another as it turns out? The simple explanation is this: Both some years ago had arranged P.O. Boxes for their letters to each other, finding it easier (and if we are honest, more securely anonymous) to simply ask the post office to forward their letters as they moved around rather than keep updating each other directly. Killian’s P.O. Box was in Syracuse, NY, where he had gone to library school and his first port of call in the USA while Emma’s was in Tallahassee, FL, where she had stayed for two years after Henry was born.

Could they have saved themselves a fair bit of time and no small amount of loneliness had they just used their real addresses? Or, you know, their actual names? 

Yes. Yes they could. But then we wouldn’t have a story.) 

As Killian reeled from his astounding discovery, Emma was sitting on the hood of her Bug, wincing as her shift supervisor (and friend) laughed, so long and so hard Emma feared she’d give herself an aneurysm. 

After a while she began to hope for an aneurysm. 

“Oh my God,” Ruby gasped, once she was finally able to speak through her mirth. “That is the funniest thing I’ve heard in a long time. Years, probably.”

“ _Not_ helpful, Rubes. I only called to tell you that I’ll be in as soon as possible, I can probably get going in about five, ten minutes or so. I’m really sorry.” 

Ruby’s appreciation for a good joke did not affect her empathy for a friend in need. “Look, Ems, we’re not busy today, three patients have already cancelled their appointments. I can cover what’s left. Let’s just call this a sick day for you and if you want you can make up the shift this weekend. Go home and rest. You’ve had a _narrow_ escape after all.” 

Emma groaned. “I hate you.” 

“You love me, and don’t forget I’m covering your shift today so you really shouldn’t be _stuck_ up.”

“I mean, that’s just terrible.” 

 Ruby laughed. “Call me later. I’ll be waiting so don’t think you can _wriggle_ out of it.” 

“You are the worst and I’m hanging up now. Goodbye. And thanks.” 

“Any time, doll.” 

Emma hung up the phone just as Killian came through the doors holding, she was relieved to see, her letter. 

And with a very peculiar expression on his face. 

She felt her heart flutter. He looked… intense. It was a good look on him. 

She remembered how his arms had felt around her and the flutter became a gallop. 

He handed her the letter. 

“You’re honeysuckle,” he blurted. 

“I— what?” Emma blinked in surprise. 

“Honeysuckle. Not lilacs or roses, or sunflowers, thank goodness.” 

 _How could he… no!_ she thought wildly. _He couldn’t, he wouldn’t have. He seemed so nice_. 

“Did you read my letter?” she cried, somehow feeling more betrayed than angry.

“No! That is, I sort of did, but—” He ran a hand through his hair, looking distressed. “Oh, I’m doing this all wrong.”

“Just what exactly _are_ you doing?” she snapped. 

He took a deep breath, and looked her in the eye. “Let me introduce myself,” he said. “We really haven’t been properly introduced. My name is Killian Jones. Killian with a K.” 

Emma gasped as the import of his name plus the fact that he knew what was in her letter hit home. _K. Jones._  

“You— you’re K?”

“Aye. I mean yes, I am. And you’re E. Who smells of honeysuckle. I’ve always wondered.”

“You wondered what I smelled like?”

“I’ve wondered a lot of things about you, love.” He smiled, not the awkward, shy smile he normally gave her, but a bright and brilliant one full of joy and just a hint of mischief. It made her feel feather-light and ridiculously happy. This man she could definitely picture sniffing lilacs and thinking of her. He _was_ real, and right in front of her, and her imagination had utterly failed to do him justice. 

“Listen,” he said, more confident than she’d ever seen him but with nervousness just creeping in at the edges, rubbing at a spot behind his ear and looking just over her left shoulder, “Would you, um, like to have a drink with me? You probably have to get to work now, but maybe later—” 

“I have the day off.” The words were out before she could stop them. 

Hope lit in his eyes. “You do?”

“As of five minutes ago,” she confirmed. “My boss said I’d clearly been through enough already today and told me to take a sick day. But, I mean, don’t _you_ have to work—”

“I’ll take a sick day too,” he said hurriedly, pulling out his phone. “Just give me a minute.” 

The phone rang only twice before Belle picked up. She was nothing if not efficient. 

“Hi, Belle, it’s, er, Killian.” _Of course she knows that you numpty she saw your name come up on the screen_ , he thought _._  

(Killian is a terrible, terrible liar.)

He cleared his throat and continued. “I’m, um, so sorry but I’m not well today.” 

“Not well,” repeated Belle.  

“Er, no, I think I’ll have to stay home.” 

“You sound fine, Killian.” _She_ sounded strict, when she was usually so kind. He forced himself not to panic, and attempted a little cough. “No, I assure you,” he said, “I’m very ill.” 

“Very ill, you say.” 

“Er, aye.” _Why is she repeating everything?_

“Too ill to come to work.” 

“Um, yes.” 

“Too ill to come to work and _not_ in fact currently standing in the patrons’ car park with Henry’s mother?” 

He gaped. “How do you—”

She laughed, a familiar, warm sound, and Killian felt the knot of tension in his chest begin to melt. “I heard you come in through the main door and I came to see what was going on,” she said. 

Killian felt a stab of guilt. “Belle, I can explain—” 

“You don’t have to. At least, not yet. I’ll be demanding a full explanation tomorrow, when I feel certain you’ll be well enough to come to work.” 

“Of course. Thank you, Belle, you’re a treasure.” 

“Just be sure you actually talk to her this time.” 

“Aye, I think I can manage that.” It was easier now that he knew he’d actually been talking to her for the best part of twenty years. 

He ended the call and turned to smile at Emma who smiled back at him, and now, my darling Reader, we come at long last to the _elation_. The sheer, shining joy of experiencing something you’ve wondered about for years and finding it surpasses even your most elevated expectations. 

They went for coffee. They walked to the coffee shop, past the lilacs which were just beginning to fade, and they sniffed them together. 

Their conversation flowed with surprising ease, or perhaps not so surprising. In a way of course they had only just met but in another way they had known each other for years, and they were pleased to discover that there was no awkwardness between them other than that which results naturally between two people who are wildly attracted to each other and only just beginning to explore it. 

They explored it eventually. And thoroughly. 

And when the following year they stood in a country garden with Belle and Ruby and a Henry who was almost dancing with excitement and exchanged rings and promises of love and fidelity, the trellis above their heads was heavy and fragrant with honeysuckle in full bloom. And not a sunflower in sight. 

(Ah, I love a happy ending, I hear you sighing, beloved Reader. I do as well but I fear this is not one. It is of course a happy beginning.)

 


End file.
